National Evaluation Policy to be launched at EvalColombo 2018

September 08, 2018

The National Evaluation Policy (NEP) of Sri Lanka, would be launched at ‘EvalColombo 2018,’ the first ever global conference on evaluation organized by the Global Parlimenterians” Forum for Evaluation (GPFE) and the Sri Lanka Parlimenterians’ Forum For Evaluation (SLPFE) in partnership with the Prime Minister’s Office of Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Project Management and Southern Development, Parliament of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Evaluation Association (SLEVA) will be held at the Hilton Colombo from of September 17 to 19, 2018.

“Sri Lanka will be the first country in the South Asian region to introduce a National Evaluation Policy,” said Ananda Rathnasiri, Deputy Speaker and Chair of SLPFE at a press conference held at the Parliamentary Complex last morning. “The Department of Project Management and Monitoring, is in the process of developing a strategic framework to implement this policy,” he added.

Evaluation is a systematic assessment of an on going cycle of policy or programmatic planning and improvement using criteria such as relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability to ensure that future planning is based on robust evidence, while the launch of the NEP would be an essential milestone in the history of Evaluation in our country. In a press brief handed out, Kabir Hashim Minister of Highways and Road Development Sri Lanka Chair of GPFE, who has been instrumental in forming GPFE states “Our vision is that evaluation becomes so embedded in good governance, that no policymaker or manager would hold an important meeting or reach an important decision without having reviewed relevant evaluation information.”

Charitha Ratwatte, Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, has stated that “The National Evaluation Policy is not about building a system to point fingers or blame managers, administrators, Parlimenterians or our leaders. On the contrary, it is a system for learning the best practices through a robust scientific understating, seeking out the best course of action on a project.”